They have been working for almost a year on a digital videodisc intended to provide content along with Web browsing for television sets, and he wants to review their progress before leaving for Japan, where he will meet with such potential partners as Toshiba.

Early adopters of electronic storage now find that their data is stuck on obsolete formats — the National Air and Space Museum in D.C. has a whole bunch of photographs stored on videodisc, that ill-fated 1980s-era forerunner of the DVD, for example.

As early as 1984 I can remember working on a highly-innovative, game-based videodisc for pharmaceutical reps, that used all sorts of fab video effects including a nevigatable 3D mock-up of a hospital, that won an industry award, appeared on the BBC, but which was hopelessly off-beam in terms of its application.